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Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

Backgrounder

Provisions in the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act came into force on March 10, 2015 and include:

Prohibiting the non-consensual distribution of intimate images;

Empowering a court to order the removal of non-consensual intimate images from the Internet;

Permitting the court to order forfeiture of the computer, cell phone or other device used in the offence;

Providing for reimbursement to victims for costs incurred in removing the intimate image from the Internet or elsewhere; and

Empowering the court to make an order to prevent someone from distributing intimate images.

Other concrete measures undertaken by the Government of Canada since 2006 to keep young Canadians safe in their communities include:

Increasing penalties for sexual offences against children and creating two new offences aimed at conduct that could facilitate or enable a sexual offence against a child;

Strengthening the sex offender registry;

Increasing the maximum penalties for luring a child;

Increasing the age of protection, also known as the age of consent to sexual activity, from 14 to 16 years;

Enacting legislation to make the reporting of child pornography by Internet Service Providers mandatory;

Strengthening the sentencing and monitoring of dangerous offenders;

Investing $14.2 million a year to protect children from predators through the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet;

Launching, in January 2014, the anti-cyberbullying national awareness campaign, Stop Hating Online, to raise awareness among Canadians of the impact of cyberbullying and how this behaviour amounts to criminal activity. The campaign's website Canada.ca/StopHatingOnline, is a comprehensive resource for parents and youth that includes information, advice and tools needed to identify, prevent and stop cyberbullying.

Launching the third phase of the anti-cyberbullying awareness campaign in September 2014. This phase of Stop Hating Online featured a "Consequences" advertisement on television, in cinema and online. Our Government has also launched #WordsHurt, an interactive YouTube experience that demonstrates the profound impact that words can have; and,

Supporting the development of a number of school-based projects to prevent cyberbullying as part of $10 million in funding that was committed in 2012 toward new crime prevention projects.

Other important initiatives that the Government supports to address cyberbullying include:

The RCMP Centre for Youth Crime Prevention, which offers resources such as fact sheets, lesson plans and interactive learning tools to youth, parents, police officers and educators on bullying and cyberbullying; and,

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection's NeedHelpNow.ca website, which Canadians can use to report online sexual exploitation of children and seek help from exploitation resulting from the non-consensual sharing of sexual images.